Comparison

Ultimate Guitar vs YouCompose

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Ultimate Guitar

Access a vast library of guitar, bass, and ukulele chords, tabs, and lyrics. Learn songs with interactive lessons, original sounds, and practice tools. Create and share your own tabs, or explore curated collections.

Highlights
  • Extensive chord, tab, and lyric library
  • Interactive lessons and courses
  • Original song sounds with Tonebridge
  • User-created tab sharing
  • Offline tab access
  • Left-handed mode
  • Built-in tuner and metronome
Features
Read full description

Access the world's largest catalogue of guitar, bass & ukulele chords, tabs, and lyrics. Challenge yourself to learn your favourite songs and more! You have choices galore: • Search for songs by genre, rating, your ability, tuning level • Explore UG Tab collections. Use the finder for your faves, fall in love with something new, feel the nostalgic vibes. Search by themes like House or Acoustic, or check out the latest album releases. Find collections based on your interests such as Star Wars or funky Bollywood beats. • Focus on guitar techniques, find songs personal to you in collections from professional guitarists • Anytime you feel inspired to share a song, create and upload your shot on the spot. It’s that easy! Share the best parts of your performance with your like minded community of fellow musicians. • Reach your true musical potential – learn to play with UG Courses here. Access over 2500 lessons for any skill level and instrument type from guitar, drums to piano and more. Learn different styles and techniques with guidance from professional musicians. Progress at your own speed and on any device, anytime, anywhere. • Play 29K+ popular songs in their original sound with Tonebridge Guitar Effects And it doesn’t end there Check out all these features: • Explore guitar, bass & ukulele chords, tabs, and lyrics for songs in every genre • Watch videos of songs to refresh your memory or use as backing tracks • Compile your favourite tabs in playlists from our tab collections • Create ‘Personal’ tabs to edit chords, lyrics or change tabs to suit your needs • Option to Switch to left-handed mode • Set a font style and size to match the tab • Offline access to favourite tabs - available at all times • Enjoy dark mode for a gig With a Pro account: • Use interactive tabs to play songs note by note, at your own pace • Select the chord variation that best suits you from the world's biggest library of chords • Use ‘Simplify’ to make difficult songs easier • Jam with high quality tabs - over 29,000 that include backing tracks and synchronised lyrics • Hit the right tempo with metronome • Transpose songs to get just the right tone for you • Take advantage of autoscroll during your practice sessions • Achieve the right sound with the built-in guitar tuner • Share, print, and export your fave songs Problems or feedback? We are always eager to improve your Tabs experience and strive for excellence in doing so. Let us help you in person by contacting our development team at support.ios@ultimate-guitar.com, and we will endeavour to meet your needs. Please do not post bug reports or feature requests as an App Store review. Subscription information: • The "UG Pro + UG Courses + UG Sing" subscription gives you unlimited access to the app's premium content and features • The subscription price is $9.99/monthly, $59.99/yearly* • Payment will be charged to your iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase • Subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period • Your account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period at the cost of the chosen package • Subscriptions may be managed, and auto-renewal may be turned off via ‘Account Settings’ on your device after purchase • There is no way to cancel your current subscription during its active period • Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication, where applicable. * Prices are equal to the value determined by ‘Apple's App Store Matrix’ as the equivalent of the subscription price in $USD. You can read our privacy policy at https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/about/privacy.htm You can read our terms of service at https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/about/tos.htm

About

YouCompose

Create original music effortlessly with an AI assistant. This app generates unique compositions using music theory and genetic algorithms, ensuring no copyright issues. It offers a wide range of built-in instruments and flexible editing tools.

Highlights
  • AI-powered music composition
  • Original, copyright-free music generation
  • 80+ built-in instrument sounds
  • Over 85 predefined ensembles
  • Multiple creation methods (keyboard, MIDI, grid, score)
  • Classical and jazz harmonization
  • Advanced editing capabilities
Read full description

Meet Aimée, your AI assistant composer, ready to help you create amazing music effortlessly. Aimée: Originality You Can Trust. In the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence and creativity, concerns about originality and copyright are paramount. Aimée, the AI-powered assistant in YouCompose, stands out by ensuring that the music she helps you create is entirely original and free from copyright issues. Aimée Doesn't Steal! Aimée's AI isn't trained on existing musical data. Instead, she generates her own unique musical content. This innovation is achieved through the clever use of an expert system that combines music theory with advanced genetic algorithms. As a result, Aimée produces truly original compositions that are not based on or derived from existing works. At the heart of Aimée's originality is an expert system grounded in comprehensive musical theoretical data. This system provides Aimée with a deep understanding of music, enabling her to compose with creativity and precision. Whether you're crafting a symphony or a simple melody, Aimée applies her theoretical knowledge to ensure your music is harmonically rich and structurally sound. Aimée also leverages genetic algorithms, which allow her to evolve and refine musical ideas through a process akin to natural selection. By iteratively improving upon initial ideas, Aimée can explore a vast space of musical possibilities, generating compositions that are both innovative and musically coherent. This approach is crucial in addressing potential copyright infringements. By not relying on pre-existing musical data, Aimée ensures that the music you create with her assistance is genuinely yours. Why Originality Matters? In the realm of music composition, originality is not just a matter of artistic integrity but also a legal necessity. Copyright infringement can lead to significant legal challenges and financial liabilities. Aimée's ability to create original music provides peace of mind, allowing you to focus on your creative process without worrying about potential legal repercussions. Features of YouCompose and Aimée: Built-in Instruments: - 80 instrument definitions with their sounds, including all regular orchestral instruments, keyboards, organs, guitars, basses, chorus, and percussion. - Over 85 predefined ensembles for quick setup, ranging from trios to orchestras. Creating and Editing: - Create melodies using the built-in virtual keyboard, a MIDI keyboard, a grid or score editor, by importing MIDI files, or by asking Aimée to generate them. - Aimée harmonizes your melodies in classical or jazz style, considering your chosen instruments. - Edit compositions by copying, pasting, moving, and deleting movements, segments, and individual notes. - Let Aimée compose a complete symphony or add new movements based on her own or your melodies. - Control harmonization with instrumentation tools, ‘Composition instructions,’ ‘Harmonization Points,’ or leave it to Aimée. - Combine classical and jazz styles within a single piece. - Special tools for entering lyrics, applying melodic transformations, and creating dynamic effects. Sharing and Saving: - Compatible with Audiobus, AudioCopy, and Inter-App Audio for seamless audio recording and integration with other apps. - CoreMIDI compatible for use with MIDI keyboards, sound modules, or synth apps. - Export audio files in MIDI, AAC, M4A, AIFF, CAF, and WAV formats, with M4A files containing iTunes data like ‘artist,’ ‘song name,’ and ‘lyrics.’ - View, print, save or export full scores and individual parts (transposed when applicable) as PDF. - Save compositions to your device, with options to share via iCloud, email, or AirDrop. - Share compositions through email with YouCompose files, audio files, MIDI files, and PDFs of scores and parts. YouCompose also includes several sample compositions featuring well-known melodies, providing a rich starting point for your musical journey.

Screenshots

Ultimate Guitar4 screens
YouCompose4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Ultimate Guitar at Free against YouCompose's $12.99. Ultimate Guitar also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 4 months) and ratings volume (482K vs 35). YouCompose's advantage is review sentiment (70% vs 34%) and in-app purchases (none vs 10).

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Ultimate Guitar is free to download; YouCompose costs $12.99 up front. Ultimate Guitar sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. YouCompose asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Ultimate Guitar holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Ultimate Guitar has 482K ratings behind it against 35, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 34% of Ultimate Guitar's written reviews are positive against 70% of YouCompose's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Ultimate Guitar ships an update weekly, YouCompose every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on November 4, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard11 real differences · 0 level
Ultimate Guitar versus YouCompose: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterUltimate GuitarYouCompose
PriceFree — better$12.99
Rating4.7 (482K ratings) — better4.4 (35 ratings)
Positive reviews33.8% of reviews70.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings482K — better35
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 4 months
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
Best chart rank#7 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS16.114.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size232 MB399 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperUltimate GuitarElstar

Customer experience

Ultimate Guitar

All ratings481,382 ratings
Positive94.1%
Neutral2.1%
Negative3.8%
Written reviews4,568 reviews
Positive33.8%
Neutral9.0%
Negative57.2%

YouCompose

All ratings35 ratings
Positive80.0%
Neutral11.4%
Negative8.6%
Written reviews50 reviews
Positive70.0%
Neutral12.0%
Negative18.0%

Bugs and requests

Ultimate Guitar

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Autoscroll feature not working as expected
  • Inability to change instruments in Guitar Pro tabs
  • Tuner not accurately detecting strings
  • Freezing and crashing on certain devices

Requested features

4 requests
  • Allow adjustable font size for printed tabs
  • Improve search and navigation
  • Add more advanced features for experienced users
  • Provide better organization and categorization of content

YouCompose

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

9 purchases

Ultimate Guitar

Subscriptions9
  • Ultimate Guitar Pro7 Days trial$9.991 Month
  • Ultimate Guitar Pro Sale$9.991 Month
  • Ultimate Guitar Pro$9.991 Month
Show 6 more
  • UG Pro+ (1 Month)$9.991 Month
  • Ultimate Guitar Pro Sale2 variants$22.991 Year
  • Annual Pro Access$29.991 Year
  • Ultimate Guitar Pro Sale$29.991 Year
  • Ultimate Guitar Pro1 Month trial$39.991 Year
  • UG Pro+ (1 Year)7 Days trial$39.991 Year
None

YouCompose

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Ultimate Guitar free?
Ultimate Guitar is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is YouCompose free?
YouCompose costs $12.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Ultimate Guitar or YouCompose?
Ultimate Guitar is rated higher. Ultimate Guitar averages 4.7 out of 5 from 482K ratings, while YouCompose averages 4.4 from 35 ratings.
Do Ultimate Guitar or YouCompose have ads?
Ultimate Guitar shows ads; YouCompose does not.
Which is updated more often, Ultimate Guitar or YouCompose?
Ultimate Guitar ships an update weekly, and YouCompose every 4 months. Most recently, Ultimate Guitar was updated on November 4, 2026 and YouCompose on November 1, 2026.

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